Odires Mlászho’s Book Sculptures Re-Bound With Interweaved Pages

The works São Paulo-based Odires Mlászho hinge on transformations, often employing books, found images, tape, paste and collage. The Brazilian artist’s name is even a work of transmutation. Born José Odires Micowski, Mlászho created his artist pseudonym by borrowing from and combining the names of his two great influences, Max Ernst and László Moholy-Nagy. In a description taken from an insightful studio visit with Goethe-Institut, the following is perhaps the best description of the artist’s working process. “In Odires Mlászho’s work, objects are photos, texts are images, books are sculptures: nothing occupies its original place in the world. With his work the artist proves that things are not such as defined in the way we tend to believe and that after destruction objects can be re-created and reused in a total different way. His work offers us the possibility of entering a world with a completely new kind of perception: it is our world, all the original elements are there, but this world is truly and deeply transformed.

For works which Mlászho debuted earlier this summer at ‘Inside/Outside’ at the Venice Art Biennale 2013, he weaved individual pages of books until they were connected and bound in an entirely new way. Created with fellow Brazilian artist, Hélio Fervenza, the book sculptures rely on an intricate twisting of possibilities which are visually engrossing and immediately approachable, a difficult feat considering the complex theories behind the work.

According to the Design Boom review of the Biennale, “the book sculptures which he has created especially for this occasion convey his attempt to re-invent the possibilities of collage, particularly its developments in our digital world. His work, in conjunction with fellow exhibitor Hélio Fervenza, present a constellation of pieces which represent a brief archeology of the Möbius strip in art. The books sculptures which Mlászho has conceived employ volumes arranged in such a way that they are rendered in twisting formations, worked into one another, referring to principles associated with a Möbius strip” (via goethe-institut são paulo and design boom)